Wards
Not for the first time, Draco glanced over at the Gatherer on her settee and marveled at her ability to sleep in such an unfamiliar environment with someone she barely knew less than three feet away. Draco barely slept in his own bedroom with the doors triple locked. It was incredible and he had to wonder if she trusted him, or if she was just that confident in her ability to kill him should she need to. Probably the latter.
“I see she’s been a great help.”
The voice made him jump and he turned, not even realizing how panicky he looked. He was relieved to see Mr. ‘Doe’ standing in the doorway. For the briefest moment, he’d considered throwing something at Andrea to wake her in case it was Kaiser or one of his lovely coworkers come to pay a visit. Instead, Draco just shrugged.
“She was, actually,” Credit where credit was due, he thought. “But I didn’t have anything else for her to do that I couldn’t do myself so I let her sleep.”
The Auror gave him a quick once over that Draco couldn’t decipher… It felt like a strange mixture between appraisal, attraction, and an attempt to ensure that all Draco’s limbs were still intact. He offered a small smile but made no move to wake the Gatherer. Perhaps he’d been hoping to catch Draco alone?
“Was the potion very difficult?”
Immediately, Draco noted the past tense. His benefactor was assuming—albeit, correctly—that the potion was finished and that Draco had managed to successfully turn the list of ingredients into a recipe. There wasn’t a shred of doubt or question in the man’s face, either.
“Laborious, but not as complicated as I was dreading. I just finished, you have good timing.”
That was true too, though Draco was trying not to focus on it. He’d extinguished the flame beneath that particular cauldron less than two minutes before the Auror had appeared at his door. Coincidence? Andrea hadn’t been reporting on their progress, clearly, because she was still asleep. Lucky guess? There hadn’t been time for him to place any surveillance charms on the office yet, had there?
“I’m glad to hear it. Shall we tickle the sleeping dragon?”
Draco nearly missed the Hogwarts callback because his eyes refused to look away from the curve of the man’s lips as he spoke. They were bright, thin, and pink, but Draco knew instinctively that that wasn’t their true color. Darker, he thought, and fuller.
Sharking his head, he finally noticed the man watching him and he flushed, looking away in spite of himself. He tried to shake it off. He’d been looking for gaps in the glamour, of course, and had no other reason or motive for studying the man’s face.
“By all means.”
Draco wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting. Maybe a thrown object, like he’d considered earlier, or maybe a conjured bucket of cold water if the man was feeling particularly cruel. He was not expecting the man to wordlessly cancel what, by all accounts, was an incredibly strong silencing charm and simultaneously vanish her pillow.
“Asshole!”
Andrea hadn’t even lifted her head from the settee. She was evidently not surprised by the wordless magic (or hadn’t been able to hear the lack of a verbal spell, he realized) or by the sheer strength of it. Draco felt like he’d been leveled. The surge hadn’t even been directed at him but it didn’t hit and dissipate like magic usually did. This time, it spread through the room like strands of silk and clung to him, wrapping around his limbs and cutting straight through his uniform to his skin. He felt it stroke against his wrists and nearly doubled over.
“Draco, you okay?”
Andrea’s voice. She’d sat up, ran a hand through her hair, and was now looking at him curiously. Without even realizing, he looked to the Auror for confirmation before opening his mouth. The Gatherer caught that, but let him speak.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Rise and shine princess, we've got work to do.”
Draco was not fine. He knew, logically, that redoing or adding to the wards would require a lot of magic and he’d expected all three of them to be drained—not for his benefactor to suddenly act like a bottomless well of magical energy. The man had spent the last four hours alternating between spells, charms, and incantations as if none of them even required effort.
“Show off,” Andrea chided as she nudged the man and handed over the next page to read.
But he wasn’t showing off and that just made it that much worse. He didn’t appear to even be breaking a sweat and he’d been casting for hours at this point. They weren’t easy or shallow spells, either. It would have taken Draco a few days at least to create the web of protection and energy that the room was now thrumming with and it would have drained him to his core.
Despite it being almost midnight, Draco felt incredibly awake. He hadn’t taken any Wide-Eye or Revitalization potions because he’d assumed he would be needed for whatever spells the Auror had prepared, but even now he didn’t need to slam alertness draughts. Every spell that came from the man’s wand sent another rush of magic over his skin and Draco’s nervous system was on fire .
Somehow, it was both the weakest and the strongest he’d felt in a long time. It was a different kind of weak, though, that didn’t reek of alcohol or self-loathing and instead felt vaguely reminiscent of something like relaxation. That scared him, but he would process it later.
Right now, it was time for the potion.
“Alright, pour me a glass of however much you think a good dose is.”
Draco’s eyebrows nearly launched themselves off of his forehead. He looked to Andrea for a logical interference or for someone to say that this was insane, but she was just watching with a calm expression.
“I’m sorry, what?”
The man looked at him, eyes attentive and careful, but held out his empty glass. Merlin, he was actually planning to drink the potion. Draco spluttered, trying to put into words all the reasons that this was a horrible idea—he’d been just guessing at the recipe, first of all, let alone at the dosage and he wasn’t even sure what it was supposed to look like or do so he had no way to test it. Also, he’d thought that this potion was for a ritual or for the cauldrons maybe not human consumption.
“Are you insane? You understand that this potion is the product of guesswork, intuition, and sheer chance, right? Guesswork . It might not do what it’s supposed to do, it might not do anything, or it could very easily kill you.”
His benefactor continued to look at him, unwavering. He tilted the glass as if beckoning for it to be filled and kept his expression firm. He wasn’t making a request, Draco realized.
Against his better judgement, he spooned about half a cup of the potion into the offered glass. It had cooled to a pale yellowy green and smelled, at least to Draco, like burning sage. The man had clearly made up his mind that he was going to drink the potion, but Draco couldn’t help applying pressure with his ladle to the rim of the glass to keep the man from raising it to his lips.
“I could have made a mistake.”
Those brown eyes that shouldn’t have been brown flared at him. Draco realized quickly that it was a reaction to the ladle, not his words, and retreated but he let the warning hang in the air. And it was a warning, because Draco didn’t want to be responsible for whatever happened because of this potion. The man probably knew that, but he just shrugged.
“I trust you.”
He downed the entire cup’s worth in one gulp but that fact barely registered. Once again, he’d manage to hit Draco with the one sentence he hadn’t been ready for and it took a few seconds for him to recover. Andrea was looking at him again, he realized. She should have been more interested in the effects of the potion or in ensuring the health of their employer, but she was watching him.
“So, Mr. Doe ,” Her voice still sneered a bit over the fake name. “You’re not dead yet. Care to enlighten us on what that potion was supposed to do?”
After a minute of tense silence, their benefactor slowly began to smile. Rather than answer her question or address her obvious annoyance, he turned on Draco and Draco’s heart leapt into his throat. There was so much pride in his expression… And it was directed wholly and earnestly at him.
“You did it.”
“He did what you bastard?”
Vaguely, Draco heard the man reply something about the potion but he was trapped under the intensity of his gaze. Draco couldn’t remember the last time anyone had ever looked at him like that. This pride was wholesome. It wasn’t the arrogant, defensive pride that his family had taught and it didn’t have the same undercurrent that implied Draco was merely meeting an expectation rather than exceeding one. The realization that he’d earned that look nearly brought him to his knees.
“So, what now?”
Andrea was pushing and Draco couldn’t blame her because the man was blatantly ignoring her in favor of staring at Draco. He had yet to look away or even blink. Finally, with one last little smirk, their employer dropped his gaze and turned to Andrea.
“Now, we reward the hard, diligent work of our brilliant potioneer.”
Draco was positive that he’d heard wrong, or had inhaled some kind of toxin and was now hallucinating. Reward? For doing his job? He could also think of a few rewards from the man that he definitely wouldn’t mind…
Apparently, ‘rewarding’ him involved relegating him to Andrea’s settee while she and Mr. Doe examined every crook and cranny of his office. And their definition of ‘examine’ also included words like ‘organize,’ ‘clean,’ and ‘repair’.
The Gatherer had protested that she’d helped and deserved to also relax but their employer shot that down with a mere glance. So, while Draco sat back on the plush cushions, he watched. They were not just ‘examining’, he realized.
To be fair, Andrea was mostly examining. She’d been three chapters into a Danish lore book that Draco rather disliked before the Auror interrupted and declared that reading was not helpful. So, Andrea had given herself the task of organizing because she’d observed Draco working all day and had presumably learned at least a little of his system. When pressed, she shot back that she could at least pronounce the ingredients.
His benefactor had made the excuse of looking for weak spots or anchoring points but Draco was fairly sure there were none. Andrea’s choice of task seemed to suit the Auror just fine, though, and Draco found himself staring more than once as the man cleaned every possible surface and began making repairs. The shelf above his table that had been broken since he’d moved into the space? Fixed and filled with jars. His chaotic smattering of books everywhere? All moved to the newly transfigured library-like shelves that sat behind his desk. Broken lens? Repaired.
Most of the spells were common and simple, but Draco still found his mouth dry from watching. Maybe he just missed being able to do common spells. Or maybe those particular spells were so bloody domestic and maybe when they came from the mysterious Mr. Doe they sounded like an offer.
An offer of what? Draco wasn’t sure.
It was slow work but the three of them were apparently waiting for some sort of interval to pass before placing the final wards so no one complained. Auror and Gatherer worked quietly for a while. Peacefully, Draco thought, and for the first time that night he felt the aching in his muscles and the throbbing in his feet. He was going on seventeen hours of working straight and felt like it. No wonder the Auror had insisted he rest.
“Draco, dearest, you know I have nothing but the highest respect for you and your work but what the fuck is this?”
In her hand, she held a small doll made from sticks.
“Oh,” Draco couldn’t help it—he was across the room and gently taking it from her before he knew he’d stood up. “It’s an effigy of sorts… for the domovoi.”
Andrea nodded as if that made perfect sense and turned back to her sorting, but the Auror’s attention had drifted to Draco and the doll. Or, more accurately, to Draco.
“For the what?”
Draco placed the effigy back in its place beside the old-fashioned hearth in the corner. He was already off the settee, so he sat on the floor beside Andrea and began sorting books with her but he was very aware of the Auror’s eyes on him.
“The domovoi. He’s a spirit, more or less, from Slavic folklore. Usually, he’d be tied to a bloodline or an ancestral home but this one was abandoned so he came with the place. We get along well as long as you don’t piss him off.”
“You mean to tell me he’s real?”
Draco nodded, feeling unnaturally aware of the creaks and drafts in the room. The domovoi had been dormant or perhaps gone for almost two weeks now and, given the patterns Draco had observed, was due back any day now. He knew from experience that the domovoi’s biggest pet peeve was people questioning his existence.
“Yes, very real. He can be very nice—he’s been holding up that shelf that you fixed for me, for instance—or he can be quite… spirited. The last time I pissed him off, he lit the hearth rug on fire as soon as I left the office. If I hadn’t come back for my coat, the whole place would have burned.”
That seemed to warrant the man’s respect, or at least his silence, and Draco gratefully let the subject drop. For a few minutes, he let himself focus on the sorting of books which was taking place in front of him and he watched Andrea’s hands delicately stack them according to subject. It reminded him of Hogwarts’ library.
“Draco, why are you not resting?”
He looked up and felt the danger humming just under those words. Like Andrea, though, this anger didn’t scare him and Draco fought the instinctive urge to antagonize.
“Because I’m sorting, Mr. Doe.”
Well, he mostly fought the urge, at least. A deep, deep part of him wanted nothing more than to see how far he could push the man before he snapped. But he also knew enough, now, to be afraid of whatever might happen when he snapped so he reeled in the impulse to a more socially acceptable level. He deliberately did not meet the man’s eyes.
“Draco,” The man had sweetened his tone, but not lost the undercurrent of a threat. “You’re exhausted. You should go back to the couch.”
“It’s a settee.”
Andrea was very quiet and suddenly quite absorbed by the books Draco knew she’d already sorted. Did she feel the crackling energy in the air too? The thrill of walking that line came back to him as if it were oxygen for his soul. He stood, needing to do something other than sit there, and moved to his desk where he began mindlessly shuffling paperwork.
“Draco.”
Closer, this time. The man had moved closer to where he’d stationed himself and his voice had lowered meaningfully. Draco knew he was provoking the man and he loved it.
“Draco, you need to rest. Please go sit on the settee .”
It was a command that time, not a suggestion, and Draco’s mind latched onto the difference. He swallowed hard and tried to feel into whatever was buzzing between them as if he could gauge how far he should push the man. Maybe it was stupid, but…
“And if I don’t?”
Both Andrea and the man sucked in a sharp breath at that. The man’s eyes were dark with something dangerous that made Draco simultaneously want to hide and to scream for his attention. It was addictive. Draco deliberately hadn’t added ‘what are you going to do about it’ to the end of that sentence because he was very afraid that he might not like the answer. Or maybe he was afraid that he would like it.
“You don’t know what you’re playing at, Draco.”
It was supposed to be a warning, but all Draco heard was that it wasn’t a request to back off. A boundary was one thing, but an intimidation attempt? His stomach flip flopped and his knees were beginning to feel weak but Andrea was here and, frankly, Draco was feeding off the reactions he was getting like they were a drug.
“And if I do?”
He was hyper aware of every tiny shuffle or breath that came from behind him. Andrea was silent but, judging by the way glasses had stopped clinking together, the man had abandoned his ingredient organizing. Draco had his complete attention.
“If you do,” The voice was low, hypnotic, and dangerously clear. “Then you would know to listen the first time I told you to rest. Now, be a dear and go sit.”
His heartbeat was thudding in his ears but he stayed exactly where he was. It was possibly the most passive form of disobedience he could have mustered, but he physically felt the man’s magic swell in response. For a second, Draco was sure that he’d fucked up. His body was on autopilot, though, and his hands kept working to organize the stacks of paperwork.
A hand closed around his wrist: firm, unyielding, and unbelievably warm. Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck. The man held directly over his pulse point. Draco was sure that he could feel how fast his heart was racing and he stared steadfastly ahead at the wall to avoid those eyes.
“Draco,” It was no longer a name, but a final warning. “I said sit .”
Merlin’s fucking balls that went straight to his head. He turned and met the man’s eyes as if he’d been compelled but quickly looked away when he saw the fire raging behind him. His head dropped, sending prickles of heat out over his body that hovered at his now-exposed neck.
The Auror was staring at him, Draco realized, and swore under his breath before releasing his wrist. It didn’t make a difference, though. An exquisite mix of magic and warmth had spread out all over Draco’s skin and every muscle he had was practically singing—jumping at the chance to yield.
Andrea cleared her throat and Draco jolted. He kept his head down and stayed still until the man suddenly stepped back and moved farther away towards another pile of supplies. The second he moved, it was like he’d given Draco permission and Draco had to fight himself not to run back to the settee. As it was, he crossed the room in record time and sank into the cushions.
“ Mr. Doe , I believe it’s time for the next wards?”
Nodding, the man shot him a glance that clearly meant stay before joining Andrea in the center of the room. He was taking slow, deliberate breaths. They resumed their work and the Auror resumed his casting, but Draco merely watched. He did not miss the way Andrea let her hand briefly rest on their employer’s forearm, nor the way the man seemed to calm at the touch. Interesting.
An hour later, the Auror declared their work finished. The pair made quick work of cleaning up with a few well-aimed spells, each gave Draco a once over, and then promptly sent him home. Andrea offered to accompany him to the floo or even all the way to his door because it was nearly three in the morning but Draco politely declined. He didn’t want her to know or see where he lived.
The entire floo journey and walk back to his apartment building were a blur. Draco didn’t realize that he was still pumping with leftover energy and adrenaline from the night until he saw how badly his hands were shaking . Autopilot guided him to eat a piece of toast. He managed it and even considered going for a run to burn off the energy humming under his skin but, the second he touched the mattress, it evaporated.
Already fighting just to kick his shoes off, Draco fell into the deepest sleep he’d had in his entire life.
“Coffee?”
Harry gaped at the Gatherer, wondering how she could even consider caffeine after the night they’d just had, but she just smirked.
“It’s nearly four in the morning, Potter. I have a portkey to Tibet that becomes active soon and you have a shift in three hours. You weren’t planning on getting a good night’s rest, were you?”
He grumbled and shot a subtle hex at the floor near her feet but she didn’t even flinch. Instead, she laughed—how the fuck was she so awake—and grabbed his arm to sidealong them to the nearest open coffee shop.
It was small and rural, barely on the outskirts of what could be considered a suburb. It had coffee, though, so Harry collapsed into one of the armchairs by an unlit fireplace and left Andrea to go order their drinks. She’d better get him caffeine. If she came back with decaf or some tea bullshit—even as a joke—Harry was going to hex her ass black and blue.
“Stop glaring, you’re scaring the girl behind the counter.”
Harry muttered something about being a bitch, but tried to neutralize his expression anyways. He was in a foul mood, but he didn’t want anyone else to be uncomfortable. The Dursleys had taught him very young how great of an effect someone else’s mood could have on a person’s mental state and Harry hated using that against people, even unconsciously.
“So, should I wait for the coffee or did you want to explain now?”
Well, shit. With the chaos of the wards and work, not to mention being distracted by Draco, Harry had let this conversation completely catch him off guard. He wanted to wait for the coffee because surely caffeine could only help at this point. Jesus Christ he wanted caffeine. But, he was also very aware of the undercurrent of true irritation in her voice.
“I know, I know, you’re right and I’m sorry. I should have told you that we had history.”
“Yes, you should have,” she agreed, voice still cold. “Just like you should have told me you were using a glamour and a fake name before sending me to meet the poor bastard. Would you like to explain that history? Or should I ask him?”
Harry let out a heavy sigh. He knew that she had every right to be upset and to pry, but that didn’t mean that he had the slightest idea how to explain their past. Thankfully, their coffees arrived and that bought him a few seconds to think.
“You could ask him, but given that he doesn’t know who I am,” He shot him a deep, warning glare to keep her from getting any ideas there. “I don't think you’d get much of an answer. Hermione says I’m obsessive when it comes to him. We went to school together—Hogwarts—and he was a spoiled prick. He was a bully and a blood purist and, for a long time, we were enemies in everything from Quidditch to classes. But Sixth Year…”
He stopped and stalled with a long sip of his coffee. How the hell was he supposed to explain the sectumsempra curse or Umbridge or Dumbledore or—
“Sixth Year?”
Andrea’s hand on his leg was painfully grounding. He took another drink and steeled himself.
“Sixth Year, I almost killed him. He nearly bled out on the floor in front of me because of a curse that I cast and… I don’t know. Things were less hostile for a bit after that. You weren’t here for the war, I know, and I’m not going to bother explaining all of it but, long story short, I saw a lot of the shit that he went through. He tried to kill our Headmaster, Dumbledore, but he couldn’t do it.”
Andrea nodded, squeezing his leg as a small reminder that she was there and that he wasn’t alone. Harry appreciated it more than he could admit. The story was far from over, though, so he took a big gulp of hot coffee and started again.
“And then the war began. Draco’s parents were very, very close to Voldemort and they even housed him for a while. Some things happened, the Ministry did nothing helpful as expected, and somehow I ended up on the doorstep of Malfoy Manor poorly disguised by a stinging hex. They weren’t sure if it was me and they pressed him to identify me. He knew it was me, Andy. He knew . And he lied to them to protect me.”
Harry swallowed hard, surprised by the sudden emotion welling in his throat.
“And during the final battle, they called him over to their side. He’d already taken the Dark Mark and he’d already sold his soul but… Again, long story short, he threw me his wand. I never got to ask him why he did it—why he was willing to blatantly defy Voldemort to his face —but I like to think that he wanted me to win. Oh, and there was a Fyrefiend that nearly burned him and another Slytherin alive. I pulled him out.”
Again he swallowed hard, but this time it was to fight back tears. He made it a point to never talk about these kinds of things with anyone other than his therapist. Because things like this hurt .
“I can still feel the way he clung to me on that broom. He was terrified. And then after everything, after months of hunting for stragglers and preparing for depositions, there were the trials. Andy, you should have seen him… I testified on his behalf and tried to save him from what I could but he was so… shattered .”
His voice caught on the word. For the first time since that trial, Harry realized that the ache in his chest at the sight of the broken blond hadn’t just been in sympathy. He’d burned with the need to protect Draco and to somehow ease his pain. He still did.
“After the trials, he was released and he pretty much disappeared. I didn’t even know he’d gotten into potions until I asked around about the best potioneer in Britain. But, needless to say, we have history. He would hardly take the contract if he knew it was for me.”
Andy studied him very carefully for a few more moments after his voice gave out. She took his coffee from his hand and pulled a flask from her inner pocket, pouring something into his cup. He took it back without asking what she’d done.
“A calming draught,” she explained. “Because Jesus Christ that was a lot and you look like you need it.”
Harry gratefully sipped at the drink and felt the mild effects almost instantly. It slowed his heart rate a bit, at least, and he tried to channel it to stop the shaking in his hands. At least he’d said it now, right? He didn’t have to tell it again and, hopefully, Andy wouldn’t have too many hard questions.
“Okay,” It was more of a declaration than an acceptance or agreement. “I need a second to process all of that. So, topic change. You’ve managed to find a very paranoid and very high-strung potioneer.”
Oh thank Merlin. That was something Harry could work with. He took a deep breath, hearing the implication there, and sank back into his chair.
“Yes, I did. He seems to have taken to you, though.”
Andy shrugged. Her eyes darted meaningfully to his cup and he took another long sip, feeling the calming draught finally start on his breathing. Had he really been breathing that fast? Or that shallow? Either way, he’d done as requested and her eyes moved back to the fireplace.
“We can banter pretty easily which seems to calm his nerves a bit. He’s good company. I have my own suspicions about why you fled so unceremoniously yesterday, but care to explain?”
This was a safer topic. Harry took another deep, intentional breath and finally met Andy’s eyes. The mild interest in her expression was deceptive, he knew, but this entire subject was so much easier to talk about. He’d met Andy through their shared interest in kink, after all. If anyone was going to understand the mess inside his head, it was her.
“You can probably guess but, I’m not his Dom and I have no right to act like I am. Yesterday, I removed myself from the situation because… I mean, you spent the day with him and you saw how he was with both of us there tonight. ”
Andy nodded, wordlessly instructing him to take another drink. He complied, if only so that he wouldn’t have to explain any longer.
“Yes,” she finally agreed. “Your little potioneer is the most naturally submissive person I’ve ever met. It’s beautiful how effortless it is for him. He’s a brat, of course, and he feeds on that dynamic—perhaps without even realizing it. But today, with me, he let down his guard a little bit.”
“What did he say?”
She shot him a glare, but Harry already knew she wouldn’t answer. Anything Draco had said to her when they were alone was assumed to have been said in confidence and she wouldn’t break that. It was worth a shot, though, and he merely shrugged. There was no true anger in her expression and Harry knew her well enough to know that she wasn’t actually upset, so he just waited for the rest of her analysis.
“I’m not surprised that you’re so affected by him. Even without the backstory, he’s incredibly raw, on edge, and hyper aware. You’ve always been sensitive to the tiny, little things that most people don’t even notice—it’s what makes you such a good interrogator, not to mention Dom—and I think he is too. You feed off each other.”
“I still crossed the line, though.”
Andrea shrugged and cast a subtle refilling charm at her cup. She crossed her legs, considered him carefully, and finally sighed as she looked back to the fire.
“This is probably the only time I’ve ever said this—or ever will say this—in my life, Potter, but… I don’t think you did. Yes, you should have negotiations and safewords and discussions because safe, sane, consensual is the only way to do this. You know that. But I also don’t think that you should beat yourself up over it.”
Harry, who had begun to mope and who had definitely been preparing to launch an entire artillery of moral lecturing and intense criticism on himself the second Andrea left, bit his lip.
“You don’t?”
She shrugged again, this time aiming the refilling charm at his cup, and stared at the fireplace. It was entirely out of character for Harry to act like that or even feign at having control in a situation without very clear boundaries laid out. But it was even more out of character for Andrea to defend those actions.
“Like I said, going forward there has to be much clearer limits and a lot of discussion. Having said that, though, and having been there to witness the situation, I don’t think you made him uncomfortable. I know you didn’t force him, I know that he kept pushing for a bigger and bigger reaction, and I know that afterwards he seemed genuinely calm. Don’t make a habit of it, of course, but maybe give yourself a break on this one.”
Harry nodded. It was true that Draco had seemed far from uncomfortable and the blond had practically melted the second Harry had let any hint of authority slip into his voice. Maybe they could talk about it. He would have to let down the glamour, though, and he wasn’t sure he was ready to do that.
Even if Harry could feel himself rapidly becoming addicted to Draco’s particular brand of submission, Teddy was still the most important thing in this equation.